


Afflicted

by ImpOfPerversity



Series: Devastation-verse [20]
Category: Baroque Cycle - Neal Stephenson, Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-10-29
Updated: 2004-10-29
Packaged: 2018-10-21 07:02:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10680156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpOfPerversity/pseuds/ImpOfPerversity
Summary: Symptomatic information viaPOX: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis





	Afflicted

Jack's dreams -- as though his waking life, even before his precipitate arrival on board the piratical _Black Pearl_ , weren't entertainment enough -- had ever been extraordinarily vivid, full of bright colour and improbable detail, and had featured (for an example) warm rain, the odour of rotting kelp, the bite of rum and the sensation of stretching out further than his limbs could ever reach; which example, rehearsed over several recent nights, he knew now to have been prophesy, actual and true, as though his days with Jack Sparrow had been _predestined_ : and _that_ was the kind of thing that put Jack Shaftoe in a foul mood, for the inevitable implication of it was that, never mind what Jack himself (or even his familiar Imp) might do, there was no point nor purpose to it; his life had been plotted and pricked out, arranged into Acts, though less like the Acts in the Bible (though there were certain superficial similarities, viz. shipwrecks, imprisonment, exorcism of devils and suchlike calamities) than the Acts that made up a Play at some mud-girt Southwark theatre, the pit filled with baying drunkards; Jack preferred to think that the groundlings would enjoy the Play of his life -- 'Jack Shaftoe His Voyages and Adventures', or somesuch -- and, rather than flinging turnips and turds, would stand there gape-mouthed like so many mackerel in a pie, struck dumb (and thus not overly, or anyway not audibly, _critical_ ) by the tragedy, comedy, pathos and heroism being acted out before them; the part of Mary Dolores would be played (Jack hoped) by a strikingly buxom and personable wench, though hopefully one of a sweeter and less predatory disposition than the late Mistress Partry herself; actors being what they were (not that Jack was complaining, since it did his heart good to have _one_ social class to which he could feel superior) there were always plenty of spare brats around any theatre, so his boys, his thus-far _hypothetical_ boys, could be played by whichever pair of mewling squalling brats came most readily to hand; then, to complete the casting, there'd be staid brother Bob (and perhaps the chilly blue shade of Dick), and good old Tom Flinch -- whose stupid idea it had been (or so Jack liked to pretend) to stow away on that armaments ship and make a new life in sunny, friendly Jamaica -- and of course there'd have to be a part for that cack-handed idiot in Dunkirk who'd called himself a barber-surgeon (or whatever the French word for it was: _crétin_ , perhaps); oh yes, Jack had some entertaining plans for that one, including a hilariously savage finale in which the Frog would suffer an agonising (but highly amusing) death, preceded by plenty of torture and accompanied by choirs of devils, imps and Innocent Victims: Jack had in mind something like the plays he'd sneaked into as a child at Smithfield, 'William Wallace His Fate' et cetera, actual historical martyrdoms played out with enough blood and gore to satisfy a Catholic Inquisitor, entrails ( _that_ role played by strings of sausages, all slippery-skinned and stuffed with gristle and offal; fair target for a scrawny boy, and a fine bribe to exchange, later, for space near the blazing fire of whatever Vagabond-camp he and Bob had lately imposed themselves upon), livers and lights and whatever else the butcher had to spare, all to the merry accompaniment of screams of agony and ear-splitting curses; good clean fun, and one of the few joys of a Vagabond childhood, not to mention having made Jack Shaftoe what he was today; to wit, strong, muscular, prone to amusement at the most inappropriate moments, and remarkably immune to nausea or disgust at even the bloodiest naval engagements, surgical procedures, tooth-extractions, putrefying anatomies, exotic diseases (several of which, despite claims of immunity, he had experienced himself, marvelling the while at the phantastickal fertility of God, or the Universe, or whatever force had imposed such _elaborate_ sufferings upon him) and other everyday nuisances that sullied, from time to time, the lavish (if threadbare) tapestry of Jack Shaftoe's life: and yet 'twas one thing to laugh at the misfortunes and misadventures of others, and quite another matter when -- despite all the anguish, discomfort and disabiity intendant on Half-Cocked Jack's most infamous feature, itself the result of an ill-advised attempt to rid himself of the death-sentence of _Syphilis_ for once and for all -- the damn'd Pox was once more making itself known upon Jack's person, in the form of a certain stiffness of the joints, a ringing in the ears (reminescent in volume and timbre of the Plague-bells of London, of which at times Jack dreamt so vividly that he woke shouting and cursing, expecting the hellish brimstone reek and glow of Spitalfields; but Jack Sparrow, improbably attentive, would be there in the musty, salt-scented cabin, lighting the lamp so that its clear yellow light could dispel Jack's dreams, grinning at him and prescribing the universal Remedy, Rum, and telling long, rambling, contradictory tales of adventures that might, or might not -- Jack was seldom able to tell truth from ornament -- have befallen Sparrow himself, or persons known to him, or characters in one of those picaresque Novels with which the _Pearl_ 's captain had, before the advent of Jack Shaftoe, amused himself) and a clutch of obscene cankers that had erupted here and there all over his body, like barnacles and teredos clustering greedily upon the hull of a ship; Jack did not care to think of the Pox-sores worming their way through a quantity of skin, bone, flesh and muscle, all of which had been functioning perfectly well for years now, despite the depradations of intemperate weather, imperfect nutrition, and a variety of military (and quasi-military) deployments which Jack Shaftoe had not managed to avoid; he was not over-fond, either, of the way that sometimes, from the corner of his eye, he'd glimpse the Imp (for surely 'twas his own old Familiar friend, and not some spirit of the vasty deep, keeping him company in this extremity as the _Black Pearl_ ran south towards the sun): he wondered what it was that Jack Sparrow saw when his gaze slid from Jack's own to meet _nothing at all_ in the dark corner of the cabin, or out in the bright clear sunlight that seemed, contrary to Jack's befuddled senses, to grow more lucent and luminous with each day of their southing; for it was evident to Jack that Sparrow shared his disease, and he'd seen with his own eyes the faint, faded, yester-year signs of Pox-sickness on Jack Sparrow's sun-darkened skin (and even on those few paler parts of his corpus) and though Sparrow did not speak, at least in so many words, of the Great Pox that affected and afflicted Jack, and was Sparrow's once (thus future) blight, Jack Shaftoe saw Sparrow eyeing his symptoms speculatively, as though he had some grand Strategy in mind.

**Author's Note:**

> Symptomatic information via [_POX: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis_](http://www.poxhistory.com)


End file.
